A. Because the counterpoint is dissonant. It reminds me of all the counterpoint toward the end of Musical Number Two in my new musical Eden in Babylon. Listen to “The Age of Nevermore” – skip to about 3:20 if you need to. When the counterpoint comes in at around 3:47, it’s the counterpoint of suffering and travail. It’s not consonant. It’s cacophonic.

Q. But didn’t you yourself compose that cacophony? I mean, intentionally?

A. I did. And that’s its saving grace. But the current cacophonic counterpoint is not being composed by me alone, but by a conflicting collaboration of a number of convoluted, confused composers. It’s a big mess.

Q. What kind of counterpoint would be better?

A. The counterpoint in Musical Number Nine: “Ode to the Universe”. I mean, listen. Where the counterpoint comes in at around 1:44, everything is happier. :)

Q. Why is the counterpoint in your life so unhappy these days?

A. Human relationships.

Q. Relationships? With whom?

A. With those whom throughout my life I have deemed most important to me.

Q. And these relationships are no longer harmonious?

A. Not sure they ever were harmonious, quite frankly. They’ve always been contrapuntal. But there have been times when the counterpoint was prettier.

Q. And now?

A. Our melodic lines are colliding. This creates dissonance and ugliness. I’m an Artist. I’m about creating Beauty. I can’t stand it when I’m even remotely involved in the creation of ugliness.

Q. But who’s to say what’s beautiful and what’s ugly?

A. You know the answer to that.

Q. Are you of such exalted Artistic merit that you can decide what’s beautiful and what’s ugly?

A. Well – I am the Artist, aren’t I? I mean – what are you driving at?

Q. Are not the others in these human relationships that you so prize, Artists in their own rite?

A. They are indeed. This is largely why I prize the relationships so highly.

Q. Then who are you to say that what they are creating is ugly?

A. I never said that! I said that the contrapuntal lines of the divergent melodies created by the — the three or four of us, let’s say — produce ugliness.

Q. Three or four?

A. Three for sure. Four pending. The fourth Artist has not yet begun his or her melodic line, at least not in a way that lets me hear it. But that’s besides the point. Let’s say it’s a Three-Part Invention — for now — and nowhere near the caliber of Beauty as such as have been created by J.S.Bach.

Q. So you are willing to concede that the individual melodic lines of the two Artists whose melodies conflict with your own might be individually beautiful in and of themselves?

A. Yes. In fact, they might even be harmonious.

Q. Harmonious? How can that be?

A. They may not be harmonious with me, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be harmonious with each other. When their parts are played separate from my own, they will no longer be in counterpoint with each other, but in harmony.

Q. Then can you not assay to be harmonious with them as well, and thus create a three-part harmony, rather than a three-part counterpoint?

A. Maybe. In the future, perhaps, after something changes.

Q. What needs to change?

A. The tonal structure of the conflicting melodic lines, obviously! We at least need to all be playing the same key, for crying out loud!

Q. But how can this ever come to pass?

A. You got me. From my position, it seems like the other musicians aren’t playing their scales right. They obviously haven’t been practicing.

Q. And you have been?

A. Yes. This is not to say that I haven’t been making mistakes. The mistakes just aren’t quite as glaring.

Q. Is there a way you can compensate for their mistakes, so that the three of you can still turn in a good performance?

A. Probably. I think it has to do with something that Jesus said.

Q. What was that?

A. He said: “He who would be greatest among you must be least and servant of all.”

Q. Are you implying that you wish to be greatest among them?

A. Not quite. Maybe second greatest.

Q. Why are you being so curt? And so vague?

A. Tired of the theme.

Q. Are you bored with the theme?

A. Not bored. More-or-less exasperated.

Q. Andy — what’s the bottom line?

A. You want to hear the bottom line? Then I’ll tell you the bottom line. The bottom line is that my sense of aesthetics, of what is beautiful and non-beautiful in the Creation of Art, is insufficient to compose or conduct the manner of three-part counterpoint that would elevate the current cacophonic theme to the level of a fugue as composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. I’m simply not a good enough composer. But I know Someone who is.

Q. Who would that be?

A. Who else? Who is the Greatest Artist? Who is the Artist so great, that He even created Art Itself?

Q. You refer to the Creator?

A. I defer to Him. He is the One who can can make the crooked paths straight, and transform the most ugliest of dissonances into the most beautiful, consonant resonance – it is through Him that the worlds have been made. Everything is formed through Christ, who is least and servant of All.

Q. And you?

A. Me? I’m just bangin’ on my old piano, gettin’ in tune with the straight and narrow.

Q. Are you implying that you won’t be content until your life-purpose is actualized?

A. Wow – that’s a really good question. Do you think I am supposed to be content anyway, even before the life purpose is actualized?

Q. Well, what do you think?

A. I think that, while I’m definitely not content — in fact, I’m restless — I believe that my restlessness serves a purpose. In other words, without being as restless as I am, I would probably become complacent, and sit on my rump, enjoying the tranquility of my peaceful abode, and not really accomplishing anything toward my life goals.

Q. But if you think your restlessness serves a purpose, why would you need to become more content?

A. What kind of a dumb question is that? Of course there is! Why else would I wish I were in safer place?

Q. Could you be a bit more specific, please?

A. What do you mean?

Q. What is it exactly about your present place that is unsafe?

A. That’s a good question. Let me think about this for a while.

Pause.

A. Well, it’s like this. I can’t exactly say that I’m in an unsafe place, at least not with respect to many of the other places where I’ve been. When I slept on a pile of cardboard in a high-crime district, I was considerably more unsafe. Yet at the same time, if I took care of myself, and I did the right things, I felt that God protected me.

Q. And if you did not take care of yourself, and did not do the right things?

A. I sometimes got burned. He protected me insofar as that He spared me my life, and saw to it that I didn’t suffer as much bodily harm or psychological damage as a lot of the people around me. But I was hit enough — and hurt enough, hard enough — to get the message.

Q. That message being?

A. All over the Book of Proverbs — for starts. But I’m afraid we’ve drifted from the point.

Q. And what’s the point?

A. The point is that, even though I’m living in a nice one-bedroom apartment in a secluded area with good neighbors, lots of protection, and a couple of locks on my door, there’s something about the place I’m at that isn’t safe. It’s not my physical spot that is my biggest concern. It’s my mental spot — where my head is at.

Q. And where’s your head at?

A. All over the map, man. I still dwell on a lot of the situations from my past, people from my past — from my homelessness. The people who tried to help me, even though they didn’t quite really get what my problem was, and so they couldn’t really help. And not only them, but the people who tried to hurt me, and who sometimes succeeded. And not only them, but —

Q. But whom?

A. My friends. The people I miss. The people who were in the same boat as I was. People who, for one reason or another, had lost their homes. We bonded together. We prayed together. We watched each other’s backs. We were there for each other, whenever somebody was down, or hassled, or messed with in some way. It was powerful. And that bonding, that love — I miss it.

Q. But isn’t there love in your life today?

A. Lots of it! Don’t get me wrong. But it’s a different kind of love.

Q. What makes it different?

A. Context.

Q. What do you mean?

A. See, I don’t have the same issues here. And the people I hang with, they don’t have the kinds of issues I had back then. Most of them never have. So when we share our love with each other, it’s on an entirely different basis.

Q. Is that a bad thing?

A. Not at all. It’s just that — I sometimes feel alone. As though my own specific experience, the particularly powerful progression of my life that has shaped me, is too weird for anybody to relate to. So while I may not be surrounded by people who blatantly want to hurt me, the ones who want to help me don’t quite know how to help. Or maybe I don’t let them help. I mean, I gotta admit, my pastor helps. My lady friend, she helps — though it’s not her job, and I sometimes feel guilty. I should be helping her, supporting her. But I’m not. I’m still on disability, and all screwed up in the head. So I turn to the therapists, to the doctors, to the system. And I find that —

Q. That what?

A. They totally don’t help. It happened just this morning even. I go to the therapist, and I think I’m advocating for myself, and I’m finding once again that I really like the guy, and I’m thinking it’s all good — and then, at the end of the session, it all comes down to the same old thing. That same old useless, worthless band-aid that can never really stop what’s bleeding inside.

Q. What same old useless, worthless band-aid?

A. Lithium.

Q. Lithium?

A. You heard me. No matter what I do and where I go, it all comes down to lithium.

Q. Why do they keep wanting to put you on lithium?

A. Because they’re boxing me into a box and not listening to my real issues. They think they know something more about me than I know about myself, because of their credentials and alleged expertise in their field. But how can they know me, if they’re not listening? They think that just because it’s well-known that those of us who are quote-unquote “bipolar” don’t like to take our medication, it means that I’m in denial, and I’ve got to take their medications. What a bunch of malarky. They might as well have told me that just because people are bipolar don’t like to walk across a pile of hot coals, then I’m in denial, and so I better walk across a pile of hot coals. Think about it! Do they think I’m stupid?

Q. I son’t know — do they?

A. Probably not. But I sure think they’re stupid, if they think that after all I’ve been through, I’m going to turn around and start believing anybody who wears a badge. And I won’t! Because I already know what’s going to happen That lithium won’t have anything to do with clearing out all of the garbage that is related to years of living on the streets. Which of course is the part they never listen to — the main part. The important part. And you know what else it will do?

Q. What?

A. It will destroy all the things that are good about me. The things that I waited years to be able to get inside and do – and that now I’m finally doing — because I finally got myself inside.

Q. What things? What things are good about you?

A. Dude! My piano playing! My speaking! My writing! My playwriting! My songwriting! All of that good stuff that I so delight in finally being able to do will be trashed and shot the hell if I take their lithium — just like it’s been trashed whenever I’ve taken any other psychiatric drug that those bastards have never ceased to cram down my throat! I lost a $50.000 annnual income in 2004 because of a psych med! And do those money-guzzling mainstream, medical monsters give a damn? Do they care? Do they care about Andy?? Do they???

Pause.

Q. Do I detect a note of resentment?

A. Listen, I’m sorry I got so pissed off. But now you understand how hard it is to keep going back to that damn clinic and trying to advocate myself. When they throw their crap back at me, I explode. I hate those medical bastards so much for what they did to me all my life – you don’t even know how much I hate them. All of them.

Q. But aren’t you — stigmatizing them? Lumping them into a box? Much as you yourself dislike being pigeonholed, can’t you find it somewhere inside yourself to be more open to them? To forgive them? To give them another chance?

A. There’s a big difference between forgiving them and just swallowing any damn pill they stuff down my esophagus.

Q. Then what are we to do about it? Shall we adjourn until next Tuesday, and give you a chance to get your bearings?

A. I could have. And I should have — since yesterday was Tuesday. I could have talked to you on Tuesday, like I’m supposed to. But I didn’t. And that’s part of the problem.

Q. Why didn’t you talk to me yesterday?

A. I don’t know. I meant to. I tried to. But every time I started, I came up against a brick wall.

Q. And today?

A. Today I still — don’t quite know what to say, or to do. I still feel like talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.

Q. Then why are you bothering?

A. Because — I’m supposed to. I’ve found that if I see you every Tuesday — or once a week rather, even if it’s Wednesday or Thursday — I somehow stay tuned up. I stay in touch with myself. I know what I’m supposed to be about.

Q. You do??

A. Well, no — not now I don’t. But over time, if I practice this consistently, with discipline, then yes, I begin to get a better idea what I’m supposed to be about.

Q. Can you really give me that power? I mean, considering you’re not even sure who I am?

A. Not logically, no. And I don’t mean to, exactly. It’s not you who is the solution. It’s the process. The fact that I choose to engage this dialectic, once a week, with consistency. It adds up, eventually. It means something. It takes me somewhere.

A. Fear that I’ll be – barking up the wrong tree. Choosing the wrong path.

Q. How will you know till you try?

A. I won’t.

Q. Then why don’t you just try one way, or the other, and see what happens?

A. Because I have not counted the costs. Of either path. I haven’t sat down and listed the pros and cons. I haven’t really made an effort to scan each option, and make a conscious decision which one looks to be the better.

Q. Then why not sit down and do so?

A. Good idea.

Q. Isn’t that better than wallowing?

A. It is.

Q. Isn’t it better than being frozen in fear?

A. Yes, it is. Even though I’m not yet taking one path or another, at least I’m doing something.

Q. What’s that?

A. Deciding. I’m making a conscious, concerted decision – and taking the time to do it. I’m not juat taking this decision lightly, nor am I avoiding it.

Q. Aren’t you feeling a bit on edge this afternoon? And maybe a little bit paranoid?

A. Paranoid?? What have I got to be paranoid about?

Q, Oh, perhaps, paranoid about your possessions, maybe? About the prospect of theft?

A. But I don’t own anything! There’s nothing to steal!

Q. But aren’t you thinking only of material things?

A. Me? Thinking only of material things? Don’t make me laugh. My mind is constantly on the spiritual, or at the very least the cerebral. The material world is of no interest to me. You know that.

Q. I do?

A. Yes, you do. If I am afraid of anyone stealing anything, it would be something invisible to all but the most adept of thieves. Something internal, something stored up deep inside of me.

Q. Such as — your peace of mind?

A. Exactly. My peace of mind. That’s what they’re after! I can tell.

Q. How can you tell?

A. (looks around) How can you not tell? They’re all around. Don’t you see them? Don’t you feel them?

Q. See them? Feel — whom?

A. Don’t give me that! You’re probably one of them. All they want is to take this delicate balance inside me, this thing that’s uniquely me, that makes me who I am, and tear it asunder, break it into pieces — I feel it — my destruction — I can’t let them do it to me anymore — I can’t let you do this to me — I need my inner self to be — synthesized — harmonized — not divided any longer!! Not divided any more!!!

Q. Do you need a doctor? Should I dial 9-1-1?

A. Not on your life, buddy!

Q. Then – what can I do for you?

A. Just keep your nose out of my business, O.G.! And keep you big mouth shut when it comes to me!!

I’m writing on a text file in Open Office. I have the emerging text to The Oracle Sequence open on another file. I’m making a conscious point of avoiding the typical Internet venues on which I write. That means WordPress, DiaryLand, Facebook, Twitter, and all email-related interfaces, such as Zoho or G-Mail. I’m trying to break certain negative associations I have developed with all of those venues, for they seem to be thwarting my progress on this particularly pertinent portion of my project. Never before have I felt such an enormity in the gap that separates the degree of my desire to progress with the degree of my actual progress, as pertains to a specific project or piece. I want nothing more than to begin making substantial progress on this project. I want the piece to “break.”

But let me explain what I mean by “break.” I use this expression a lot, but I don’t often take the time to clarify what I mean.

Whenever I am in the process of creating something substantial, my progress seems to proceed extremely slowly for the first several days, taxing my patience. But I endure, for the knowledge that at some point soon, the piece will “break.” When it breaks, it is as though floodgates have been opened. Where the rate of progress before was tortuously slow, all of a sudden I am progressing at a very rapid, steady pace. The process of producing the piece has begun to “flow.” With that sudden huge burst of energy comes a renewed confidence. I no longer brood with the sense that the inevitable break I await will be delayed interminably. Instead, I exult in the creative process. Whereas, days or hours earlier — or even moments earlier — various aspects of the process seemed to pose nothing but horrific obstacles toward my progress, they now seem to work marvelously in my favor, as if by magic. And before you can bat an eye, I feel that I am actually completing the piece in question.

You heard me: completing the piece. The prospect of its elusive completion no longer buzzes about my brain like an annoying insect I can never manage to swat. Completion occurs readily, rapidly, precisely — and in fact, numerous times.

“What?” you may ask. “How can completion occur numerous times? You just got finished telling me that until this thing ‘broke,’ you couldn’t even complete it once.”

That’s a very logical question, and please allow me to explain. For you see, it seems I’ve substituted one problem for another one.

What happens after the piece “breaks” is that, in my greatly increased productivity, I get from A to Z so fast that my emotions can barely handle the sudden positive turn of events, and I decide that everybody needs to know about it. So I gleefully send out a “completed” version of my piece to all my dearest friends and family members, hoping they will be as excited at the surprise “completion” as I am. But then, little do they barely have the chance to open their email, when BAM! I decide that the recently completed version wasn’t quite good enough; and so I send a second version of the piece; say, Version “1-B.”

After that, I send Version 1-C, and then Versions 1-D thru F, and so on down the line. People in my life are suddenly receiving so many versions of some new work of mine, they naturally have no idea when the bombardment will cease, and exactly which of the many versions, if any, they should bother with.

While this is happening, I vaguely sense that there is something wrong with my approach. Oh, I understand exactly why this pattern has come into being. The hugeness of the moment when the piece finally “breaks” is typically too much for me emotionally. You see, I had been frustrated for days, perhaps weeks, all around a relatively insignificant creative project of mine; for example, this polishing of The Oracle Sequence that has come to receive such prominence in my head lately. But once The Oracle Sequence “breaks,” then to whatever extent that I had earlier been impatient and frustrated, I will now have become just as excited, and in fact, full of glee. Excited, exuberant, and gleeful. I feel almost mischievous at that level of enthusiasm. In that sudden, newfound elation, it will be extremely difficult for me not to burst forth with a constant, incessant gush, exulting in the experience of excitement that so elates me, and exuding that ecstasy upon the world.

But when I do this, I forget that the world is not necessarily predisposed to tuning into the value of my creation at that moment. Moreover, the world does not necessarily care about my creation — at least not yet. If I want them to care in some future, positive scenario; then probably I shouldn’t be bombarding them prematurely as though to prove my prowess and prodigy in an a priori fashion. Wouldn’t it be better to hold back, until I really have a product worth releasing; and even then, to release it to the world with humility, and grace?

Of course it would be. I therefore must commit myself to terminate my earlier practice, difficult though that termination may be to effect emotionally. I need to cease to involve all my close friends and family members in my process. Henceforth I will not even go online, not even to WordPress, but do all my work in secret, offline, where nobody will see me, and where I will nor be tempted to share my work prematurely. Far better will it be for me to regard this wonderful burst of creativity as a private matter, something that speaks for the ineffable unity of the Creative Mind. In this way, it is akin to the moment of “illumination” delineated by Graham Wallas in his work on the four stages of the creative process. According to this model, the previous period of frustration and confusion actually parallels an unconscious process of “incubation,” whereby the piece is quietly being constructed with great direction and progress in the unconscious mind. The conscious mind remains unaware of this inner process, and in fact believes falsely that nothing is being accomplished at all. According to that model, The Oracle Sequence is at this very moment being polished, refined, and completed — even as we speak — though in my limited awareness, I feel as though nothing is happening at all.

Obviously, this explanation is pleasant to the ears of the Artist. But how valid is it, really? There are other ways of framing this event of “breaking,” this sudden bursting of the floodgates, and the subsequent steady flow of unprecedented Artistic creation. Some of those ways are not particularly favorable, however, or sympathetic with the Artist’s dilemma. Take the view often espoused, for example, by those in the mental health profession. These are those who contend that the Artist is only subject to his mental health disorder, since his pattern clearly manifests the mood swings of manic depression, nowadays known more commonly as Bipolar Disorder. In this view, the Artist is unable to create while in the depressive phase, because his depression prevents him from doing so, on a basic neuro-physiological level. When, in my case, I experience the event of the “breaking,” followed by a fast flow of creative prodigy, I am according to the psychiatrist merely in the “manic” phase of my “disorder.”

I am further told that during the depressive phase, the Artist may not even be aware that he is depressed. This is due to the intensity of his Artistic focus, in which he is completely immersed — even as he gets nothing accomplished at all. His focus, after all, is on his Art — whether he is succeeding in manifesting that Creation or not. So if he is not succeeding, he may well be depressed and in fact rather irritable. But he does not know this, for his focus is not on his feelings — but on his Art.

The psychiatrist continues to advise him that the reason why nothing is getting done is on account of his depression. The depression, claims the psychiatrist, has overwhelmed him, and rendered him inert and immobile with regards to his creative goals. But the Artist doesn’t see it this way. He argues that the converse is the case. The only reason he may be depressed is because nothing is getting done. And besides, the word “depression” doesn’t quite cut it. “Annoyed,” perhaps. “Annoyed, irritated, aggravated, frustrated, impatient, confused, bewildered, and generally out of sorts. But depressed? You gotta be kidding me! Depression is for less inspired, less purpose-driven men than I.”

At this, the psychiatrist typically only nods her head. “Give it about a week, my boy, and you’ll be just fine.”

Be this as it may. We have the clinical, ultra-behavioristic approach of the detached, unfeeling psychiatrist, dismissing all the mysterious spectacles of Artistic angst with a cold, calculated DSM-V approach to life. A bit more pleasing, we have the intriguing approach of Mr. Wallas and his followers, an approach that is definitely more Art-Positive than diagnostic in nature. But neither of these perspectives really assists me in confronting the essential anxiety that I must endure in order to attain to a happier state of affairs. The one way exalts Art above all, the other poo-poos and dismisses the Artistic character, even hinting at attributing the Artistic Focus to some form of mental illness. Yet despite this glaring difference in the two perspectives, they both point to one very disturbing factor that they share in common. In each case, the Artist is at the mercy of a psychic process that is largely beyond his conscious, creative control.

What is needed, then, is greater control.

As to just how this greater control is to be gained, please don’t think for one minute that I have not already pondered this question eternally. There are in fact several text files on Open Office already, exploring this perennial question. I even draw near to a solution or three, in places. But let me take my leave at this juncture, and advise you of my findings when they are bit more conclusive. It may well be that as I complete my analysis as to what it will take to complete my piece, the completion of the analysis may prove to be a more important creation than the completion of the piece itself.

“A successful writer is one who finishes what they start while striving to improve their craft. It’s as simple as that. And the only one who can stop you from doing this is you.” – Hugh Howey*

If any of my more regular readers got the idea that perhaps I was obfuscating a hidden agenda behind the seemingly innocuous postings of three successive morning “gratitude lists,’ then I must concede. That idea is sound. While trying to hold everyone at bay by posting my gratitude lists, I have secretly been absorbed in the task of cleaning up both the lyrics and music to The Oracle Sequence at the end of Act One of Eden in Babylon.

This is something that I can and must do. When I wrote that sequence, though I was “on fire,” I was also quite hasty in places. And I knew it at the time. I knew it — but I buried it beneath the sense of fiery inspiration that I permitted to delude me. I found thrilling the mere fact that I was finishing the Act at all. Add to that the sense that I actually stood a chance of finishing it in a dynamic way — a way that would intrigue and delight the audience, and give them all something to talk about during intermission — and believe you me, I was overjoyed. So overjoyed was I, that I readily overlooked the rough spots, vaguely expecting myself to patch them up later (that is, if I remembered to do so, or even decided to bother).

But then, after I had the great revelation reported earlier, I found I could no longer overlook these glaring errors. It was time for me to perform the logical clean-up, and not to feel bad about myself in the process. So I set about to do so. But I kept getting snagged. Snagged, for reasons that themselves seemed trivial, if not maddening. Maddening, in the degree of power I rendered them, despite their insignificance.

For example, I gave one verse of very quickly spewed, poorly written lyrics to three of my strongest supporting characters. If those had been real life Actors, playing those characters, I’d feel as though I had dumped on them for assigning them those lousy parts. All three of those characters, as later developed in my second complete draft are worth more to the world than the lousy lyrics I threw down on them. They’re my babies — I need to bless them with better lyrics.

Not only that, but in my haste, I took no thought as to what keys all these different characters should be singing their bits in the Sequence. Right after the verse I just mentioned, for example, the ingénue Taura begins to sing a solo to the main theme of the song “Oracle.” All the lights should be lowered and all the previous frenetic conflict be dissolved, as she begins to sing this song of spiritual calling. It needs to be her defining moment, where she sings to her guitar, as they all are gather in Nature, in the Outdoors, beneath the Stars. This is only her second solo in the show — and it is the first one that features her voice en masse before the multitudes, rather than restricted in a romantic setting between her and Winston alone. Obviously, this crucial performance of hers should feature her voice in its optimum range. But alas, as I just now have confessed, I took no thought for such a practical matter, so infused was I with the creative fury at the time.

As a result, Taura winds up having to sing this theme in the key of G, with notes much too high for the contralto whom I have intended her to be. I cursed myself. “What an oversight!” I exclaimed. Yet at the same time, I recall having furiously sped from one section in the sequence to another, overlooking every peccadillo in my path in the spirit of honoring the long-awaited arrival of the finishing of the first Act, which arrival now loomed imminently on the near horizon, a virtual, visible certainty of a happy event to come.

So I consoled myself with the memory of past faith. I figured that if I had faith beforehand — way back when — even as I plowed over every glaring error in my path like a bulldozer — I could probably summon up that same faith, and use the present day as an occasion to atone fully for my earlier carelessness, and craft the End of Act Onein a manner befitting a musical of this caliber.

When I began to exercise this renewed faith, the landscape brightened considerably. True, the lousy lyrics were the devil to replace. Moreover, I had to change the key in that section, in order to create a key that could easily modulate into a better key to spotlight Taura’s voice during her solo. But then, with renewed faith, I realized that I need not be enamored to the music itself in the section where the lyrics fell short. I now could write new music along with the new lyrics, and make that section more transitional, and less overt. Ah! It all began to come together, at last.

And it continues to come together. What is the difference? Only faith. Only being open to new and better gifts from that great Beyond whence all ideas are formed. And people may mock me and scoff, if indeed they pay any attention to me at all. I hear their imagined voices already:

“Will you never stop messing with this thing?
It’s been years now, Andy!
Get off of it! Get real!”

It puts me on the defensive, to have to answer to such objections — real or imagined. I want to say I’ll stop messing with it when somebody finally picks it up and decides to produce it — and not a minute before. But that’s a line of malarkey – blatant baloney and balderdash.

I’ll stop messing with it when I’m finally tired of it, and when I finally abandon it. That’s the naked truth, unveiled. I pray this happens before someone picks it up, and not after. If it doesn’t happen till after, I could be hell on any production staff unfortunate enough to have picked up my baby while still in the womb. Let’s hope for an on-time delivery. In my heart of hearts, I wouldn’t want it any other way.